Facebook Instagram Pinterest TeachersPayTeachers BlogLovin Home Image Map

April 17, 2012

Vroom! Vroom!

It's time to roll out the cars and trucks and things that go here at Small Talk!  This month our theme is Community Helpers/Cars and Trucks.  What better way to get started than pulling out the City rug and a bin full of vehicles?  

I bought this rug at Home Depot many years ago and it still is a favorite with my preschool kiddos.  It features roads that take you to many places in the city, including the hospital, police station, fire station and post office.

I made a "map" to help us get to all the places we need to go.  I took pictures of all the destinations on the rug and then used Boardmaker to make cards for my map.  I punched two holes in the top of each card and used metal rings to hold them together.  We select a vehicle and a place to start on the rug, and then flip to the first page of our map book.  We drive our vehicle to the place that matches the picture.  This is where you get to be creative.  Depending on the goals I'm working on, sometimes the child needs to answer a couple of questions about the place we're visiting, or sometimes I have him or her list three things they might see there.  We always talk about who might work there, or what you might do if you were there.  You can also work on negatives (ex. "This is not the post office"), and a whole host of other language concepts.  I also use it to work on articulation skills by placing stacks of picture cards on each location and having the child say the target words before moving onto a new location. 

I took individual pictures of the locations on the rug and imported them into Boardmaker cells to make the pages of the map book.

An example of a city location and it's matching map card.

If you have this rug and would like copies of my photographs, download them here:

Car Rug Destinations 1
Car Rug Destinations 2
Car Rug Destinations 3

Nice chatting with you!

Pam





5 comments:

  1. I just came across your blog from pinterest and am so happy! You do a great job! I have this same rug in our play room and was wondering if there is a spot on your blog that I can download these pictures to do this with my boys. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. I'm glad you like my blog! I haven't been very motivated to add to it lately, and now knowing that someone found it useful might just light a spark under me to get going again! I created those pictures using Boardmaker years ago, and I did some digging on an old computer to find them. I will post them momentarily as an addition to this blog entry. There are 3 separate files. Please let me know if they don't download for you and we'll try something else. Have a great day!

      Delete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you so much for the quick response and the extra work to dig them up!! I printed them off now and can't wait to use them! Keep up the awesome work with all that you do! Happy 4th of July!

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is exactly what I was looking for when creating a picture sequencing lesson for Social Studies! Thank you so much for your willingness to share with other educators!

    ReplyDelete